About

Eric de Groot, MindMeeting BV, is one of the first Meeting Designers. His pioneering work started in 1992; now he caters to the national (Dutch) market in his company De Wet van Thomas and internationally in MindMeeting BV. Thanks to his background in drama he takes a broad, human perspective to meetings and meeting processes. He sees meetings as potentially strong catalysts of success if action is involved in them. “Listening to presentations is only the beginning of learning and change“: he says. His meeting designs involve tailor-made interactions, crowdsourcing and group-work. He calls his live presentations Keyshops. Online he involves participants as good as possible.

Eric regularly conducts workshops and learning sessions for professionals all around the globe. He wrote ‘Into the Heart of Meetings’ referred to as the bible of the changing meeting industry. In 2023 ‘Meetings, by Default or by Design’ was released. A book offering design solutions in 40 different aspects of meetings.

Cecilia Domínguez Conde is a Group Leader at the Population & Medical Genomics programme of the Genomics Centre at Human Technopole (HT) in Milan. After training as a pharmacist in the University of Seville, Cecilia went on to do a PhD in Immunology at the Research Centre for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) in Vienna where her work focused on dissecting the genetic cause of molecularly undiagnosed primary immunodeficiencies using exome sequencing. In 2019 Cecilia joined the Teichmann lab at the Wellcome Sanger Institute where her focus has been to dissect the diversity of human immune cell types across lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues as part of the Human Cell Atlas initiative. Her research group at HT, established in 2022, uses cutting-edge genomic technologies to study developmental immunology in health and disease.

Susan Gasser studied at the University of Chicago (biophysics) and then completed her PhD at the University of Basel (biochemistry; with G Schatz) before a postdoc at the University of Geneva, where she studied human chromosome structure. She was group leader at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne from 1986 – 2001, then professor at the University of Geneva, before leading from 2004 – 2019, the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel. Under her direction the institute became one of the leading biomedical research institutes in Europe, excelling on topics of neuronal circuitry, epigenetics, cell fate decisions and quantitative biology. Her own research team contributed insights into heterochromatin and genome stability in C. elegans and yeast, until 2021. She is now professor invité at the University of Lausanne and Director of the ISREC Foundation (www.isrec.ch), where she helps foster translational cancer research at the Agora Cancer Research Institute. She participates in numerous review boards and advisory committees in Switzerland, across Europe and in Japan, and actively promotes programs to advance the careers of women scientists.

Johannes Grillari is director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Traumatology. The Research Center in cooperation with AUVA and associate Professor at the Dept. of Biotechnology at BOKU University Vienna. His research interest is on improving our understanding of the molecular and physiological changes that occur during cellular aging, their impact on organismal aging and tissue regeneration. His work has pioneered the role of miRNAs in cellular senescence, bone and skin regeneration, showing that extracellular vesicles and their cargo, especially their miRNA cargo are inhibitors of regeneration when from senescent cells, while they have therapeutic effects when coming from mesenchymal stroma cells. He was also instrumental in designing targeting EVs for regenerative medicine purposes. He has authored and co-authored more than 230 SCI publications and 15 patents. He is also co-founder of companies in the space of cellular senescence and extracellular vesicles.

Prof. Dr. Georg M. Guebitz obtained his PhD in Biotechnology from TU-Graz, Austria in 1996. As an Erwin-Schroedinger Fellow he investigated enzymatic strategies related to lignocellulose processing at University of British Columbia, Canada from 1996 – 98. Since 2013, he holds a full professorship at BOKU-Vienna, and is the head of the Department of Agrobiotechnology, IFA Tulln. Guebitz’s research is focused on on biotechnical functionalization, processing and recycling of materials. In this area, Guebitz has published more than 450 papers in peer reviewed journals (h-index 77, Scopus), he holds 15 patents and has edited various books and has received more than 20 prestigious awards. He participated in 35 European projects and coordinated 8.

Susan Howlett is Professor of Pharmacology and Geriatric Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax where she has taught for more than 30 years. Her laboratory is recognized for work on cardiac excitation-contraction coupling. She has discovered profound differences in male and female heart cell function, how these change with age and how sex hormones regulate these processes. Her lab has pioneered the measurement of frailty in naturally aging animals with a novel "frailty index" (FI) tool based on deficit accumulation.  Her work shows that maladaptive, age-dependent changes in heart structure and function are better graded by the level of frailty than by age itself. Critically, cardiac aging and frailty are linked to inflammation in a highly sex-specific fashion.  Her work shows polypharmacy exacerbates mouse frailty, while deprescribing, exercise or geroprotector drugs attenuate frailty.  A translational scientist, she has used results from animal studies to develop a new tool based on lab results (the FI-Lab) to measure frailty in people.  As a frequent contributor to prominent journals (H-index 55), editor, reviewer and editorialist, Susan has a wide view of research across the life course in both sexes. Her personal and collaborative experience allows insight into the needs of researchers across the career span. Her mentorship of now generations of young scientists, the great bulk of whom have pursued academic careers, speaks to her ability to inspire young researchers.

Elina Ikonen, MD PhD, is a Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology at the Faculty of Medicine and Chair of Helsinki BioImaging Platform of Helsinki Institute of Life Science at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on understanding the principles by which key membrane and storage lipids, such as cholesterol, sphingolipids and triacylglycerols, are distributed in mammalian cells. These basic concepts are of fundamental importance for normal cellular functions and disturbances therein are associated with major human health threats, such as cardiovascular diseases and metabolic complications of obesity. Her group also develops, in collaborative efforts with biophysicists, organic chemists and molecular engineers, novel techniques for improved detection and analysis of cellular lipids. Her work has contributed to fundamental principles in the field of membrane lipid biology, and her findings have led to increased understanding of lipid-related disease mechanisms and to inventions for improving the detection or manipulation of lipids in the cellular and tissue context and treating dysregulated cholesterol homeostasis. Prof. Ikonen participates actively in advancing European science policies, e.g. as a scientific advisory committee member of EMBL and director of European research consortia. 

Sebastian Leidel is Full Professor of Cellular RNA Biochemistry at the University of Bern. He studied Protestant Theology in Siegen, Marburg, Jerusalem and Heidelberg and Cell and Molecular Biology at Heidelberg University. After completing his master’s thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the laboratory of Pierre Gönczy at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research for his Ph.D, where he studied the role of SAS proteins in centrosome duplication in C. elegans. More and more attracted by biochemistry, he did postdoctoral work at the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich, where he discovered that ubiquitin-related modifier 1 (Urm1) acts as a sulfur carrier during the modification of cytoplasmic tRNA in eukaryotes. In 2008, he became a lecturer at the Institute of Biochemistry at the ETH Zurich before starting a Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster in 2009. There he continued his work on tRNA modifications and cellular quality control. He received an ERC Starting Grant in 2012 and was appointed full professor at the University of Bern in 2018. In 2019 he became an elected member of the Academia Europaea.

Dr. Valter Longo is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of longevity and age-related diseases.

His laboratory described and developed the fasting-mimicking diet and published on its effect on multi-system stem cell activation, reprogramming, and regeneration. This led to over 30 clinical trials on longevity and age-related disease, some demonstrating the effect of fasting-mimicking diet cycles inreducing biological age, causing diabetes regression, and potentially increasing survival in cancer patients.

Dr. Longo is a Professor of Gerontology and Biological Science and Director of the Longevity Institute at the School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, one of the world’s leading centers devoted to teaching and research on aging.

His book, “The Longevity Diet”, is an international bestseller, translated into over 25 languages and sold in more than 30countries around the globe. In 2018 he was included among the 50 most influential people in healthcare by TIME magazine.

He is the founder of the non-profit organizations Create Cures Foundation in the US and the Valter Longo Foundation in Italy, which provide lifestyle education for children and adults, and nutritional assistance to optimize healthy longevity.

Nataliia Maronchuk, MSc.

University assistant

Clinical Psychologist in specialist training

PhD Student in Medical Psychology

@: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

EDUCATION

10.2022 – ongoing – PhD Program in Medical Psychology/ Medical University Innsbruck (MUI), Austria

10.2021 – ongoing – Clinical Psychology postgraduate course/ Austrian Academy of Psychology (AAP), Austria

10.2016 – 07.2021 – Master of sciences in Psychology/ UMIT Hall in Tirol, The Tyrolean Private University, Austria

09.1998 – 07.2004 – Master of sciences in economics/ Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine

MAIN RESEARCH AREAS AND INTERESTS

Resilience, Coping with stress, Interventions for stress management, effects of electroconvulsive therapy on cognitive function, Affective Disorders, Schizophrenia

Andy Martin did his undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2003, focusing on protein folding and directed evolution. From 2003 to 2008 he pursued postdoctoral studies in the Biology Department at MIT, where he investigated the mechanisms of ATP hydrolysis, substrate recognition, and degradation by the bacterial AAA+ protease ClpXP. In 2008 Dr. Martin became a faculty member in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, and since 2015 he has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the structure and function of AAA+ proteases and protein translocases, with a main emphasis on the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

Anne Müller studied Biology at the University of Würzburg and received her PhD in Microbiology at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. She pursued postdoctoral studies at Stanford University in the lab of Stanley Falkow. She currently serves as Full Professor of Experimental Medicine and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Molecular Cancer Research at the University of Zurich. Her research interests include infection-induced cancers and host-pathogen interactions at mucosal surfaces, as well as the pathogenesis of B-cell lymphomas.

Carol Munro has a personal chair in Microbiology at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen and is leader of the Microbiology & Immunity Research Theme. Carol is part of the Aberdeen Fungal Group and has over 25 years research experience investigating human fungal pathogens. Her research focusses on how fungal cell surface components contribute to virulence, host interactions, antifungal drug tolerance and resistance. Prof Munro has published 140 scientific publications, book chapters and reviews. She is Deputy Editor-in-Chief for FEMS Yeast Research, and is on the Microbiology Society’s Impact and Influence Committee.

Over the years Prof Munro’s group have worked with a number of anti-infectives companies through industrial-funded studentships, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and fees-for-service contracts. Carol, with partners at the Scottish Biologics Facility, has developed a proprietary drug development pipeline and exploited this to discover novel biologics-based antifungal immunotherapeutics that target the fungal cell wall. The team has received funding from Scottish Enterprise, BBSRC iCure Explore programme and Innovate UK for pre-clinical development of their antifungal antibodies with plans to spin-out a company Brigid Biologics.

Pavel was born in Kerch, Ukraine. In 2009 he received PhD in biochemistry from Technical University of Karlsruhe (KIT, Germany) with Prof. Anne Ulrich; and PhD in organic Chemistry from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University (Ukraine) with Prof. Igor Komarov.

In 2009, Pavel returned to Ukraine and joined “Enamine” company, where he is currently involved into discovery of novel building blocks for drug design.

Pavel´s research interests include fluoroorganic chemistry, chemistry of diazo compounds, photochemistry and saturated bioisosteres of the benzene. He is co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed research manuscripts. In 2017, he received Dr.Sci. in organic chemistry from the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.

Yvonne Nygård has a PhD in Molecular Biotechnology from Aalto University and currently works as Research Professor at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and as Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Moreover, she is the CSO of a fungal start-up, Cirkulär AB. Yvonne’s main research interest is to develop microbial cell factories for industrial applications. She combines systems and synthetic biology with high throughput screening using biofoundry based approaches. Her research team works mainly yeast and filamentous fungi and has developed various synbio tools including expression systems, CRISPR/Cas based genome editing approaches and biosensors to name a few. 

Wilfried Posch is Associate Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Head of the Department of Hygiene, Microbiology and Virology at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria. Wilfried studied Molecular Biology and the focus of his PhD was the characterization of host-pathogen interactions. During his research stays at the University College London, London, UK and at the INSERM UMR-S945 in Paris, France, he could further develop his knowledge in infection biology, inflammation and immune regulation. In 2018, he received his Habilitation in Immunology and established a research group at the Institute of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology. He and his team have been working on developing novel strategies for investigating microbial infections using human 3D cell culture models. Due to his ample expertise in T cell immunity, the group is currently also interested in studying adaptive immune responses within 3D cell culture systems.

Christa Schleper is professor at the University of Vienna since 2007 and Head of the Archaea Biology and Ecogenomics Unit in the Faculty of Life Sciences. She was educated at the Universities of Aachen and Konstanz in Germany and did her PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute in Martinsried. After a Postdoc in California with Ed Delong she was assistant professor in Darmstadt and full professor in Bergen, Norway.

Christa has >25 years of experience with archaea. She studies the ecology and evolution of Thaumarchaeota and the newly discovered Asgardarchaea, as well as CRISPR defense systems in hyperthermophiles. Her major focus over the past 20 years was on the study of ammonia oxidizing archaea, that together with bacteria have great influence on the global nitrogen cycle, and play an important role in agriculture and the overfertilization problem. Christa is a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the American and European Academies of Microbiology and EMBO and received the Austrian Wittgensteinpreis in 2022.

Christa is engaged in climate activities at the University of Vienna and education and gives also public talks on the environmental challenge and connection of overfertilization, food consumption and the nitrogen cycle.

David started his entrepreneurial career in 2012 as CEO of the german university spin-off SeSaM-Biotech GmbH to follow his scientific passion - enzymes. He ran the company specialized in enzyme development by Directed Evolution in parallel to his studies at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where he graduated in 2014 in Molecular and Applied Biotechnology among the top 5% of all university students of the year for which he was awarded the "Springorum Denkmünze".

While growing SeSaM-Biotech organically from 1 to 10 employees over 7.5 years, David sought to integrate artificial intelligence into enzyme development which led to the foundation of his own company Aminoverse in March 2020.

To date, the venture capital-free company counts 19 people and offers dedicated enzyme R&D services by combining wet lab, biophysics and AI. A major milestone was the achievement of profitability after just 3.5 years in 2023.

Florian is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA).

His lab aims to integrate cell and structural biology approaches to understand how higher-order protein assemblies are defined by the interplay between inter-molecular interactions and the geometrical/architectural boundary conditions of the biological system. Specifically, the lab studies the molecular organization of mechanisms that control cell migration and viral infection. To this end, the Schur lab develops new approaches in cellular cryo-electron microscopy, including specimen preparation, data analysis and high-resolution structure determination.

The research of Florian’s lab is supported by different national and international grants, including a ChanZuckerberg Initiative grant, an ERC Starting grant and an FWF Emerging Fields grant.

Florian is an EMBO Young Investigator and a recipient of the FEBS Excellence Award.

Nektarios Tavernarakis is Professor of Molecular Systems Biology at the Medical School of the University of Crete. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), and Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), where he is heading the Neurogenetics & Ageing laboratory. He has served as Chairman of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Governing Board, as Vice President of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC), and Director of IMBB. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), among others. His work focuses on the molecular mechanisms of necrotic cell death and neurodegeneration, the interplay between cellular metabolism and ageing, the mechanisms of sensory transduction and integration by the nervous system, and the development of novel genetic tools for biomedical research. He has received several notable scientific prizes, including two ERC Advanced Investigator Grants, and an innovation-supporting ERC Proof of Concept Grant. He is the recipient of the EMBO Young Investigator award, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel research award, the Scientific Prize for Medicine and Biology, the Excellence in Biomedical Sciences Award, of the Bodossaki Foundation, and many more.

Gustav Vaaje-Kolstad is a professor of biotechnology and the deputy leader of the Protein Engineering and Proteomics group at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Throughout his career, he has specialized in carbohydrate-active enzymes, most notably discovering lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs). His research interests also include the deconstruction and application of novel exopolysaccharides, as well as the synthesis and enzymatic depolymerization of synthetic polymers.

My research broadly focuses on virus evolution, genome evolution, and phylogenetics. I pay special attention to virus-host co-evolution, the evolution and origin of specific genes, and the phenotypic consequences of genotypic novelty. Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites infecting organisms across the three domains of life (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya). New viruses are continuously being discovered, and it has become apparent that they are virtually everywhere. Viruses are important drivers of ecosystem functioning, as viral infection can influence the evolution of their hosts and other organisms (including other viruses) interacting with these hosts.

Dr. Juliane Winkler is a Group Leader at the Center for Cancer Research of the Medical University of Vienna. She is a trained Pharmacist and received her Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg (jointly EMBL, German Cancer Research Center, and Institute of Pathology), where she studied how nuclear transport alterations promote aggressive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In her postdoc at the University of California San Francisco, Dr. Winkler worked with the late Zena Werb and Andrei Goga on the impact of tumor heterogeneity on breast cancer metastasis and developed and applied novel single-cell omics technologies. The Winkler lab is using single-cell omics and spatial technologies to understand the implications of tumor heterogeneity on the formation and progression of metastasis and metastatic niches.